


The Best of Intentions

by AgentFontySeven



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Dragon Ball
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Gore, Horror, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Control, Swearing, Time Travel, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:59:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9615173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFontySeven/pseuds/AgentFontySeven
Summary: With Cell defeated, the world's defenders are more than ready for a well-earned moment of peace. However, that moment is cut painfully short when a message from Trunks' long-dead master, Gohan, warns of a threat greater than that of the Androids. Could he just be warning of Cell, or something more? And why did he go out of his way to make the warning for Piccolo's eyes only?Note: Mostly DBZ based. Knowledge of Resident Evil not strictly necessary.





	1. A Warning Too Late

 Gohan’s legs nearly gave out from under him as he stumbled his way into his darkened bedroom. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. His head was already pounding, his vision blurring in and out. Light would only make it worse.

 He’d hardly managed to close the door behind him before he finally lost his balance. He tried to catch himself, but his shoulder crashed painfully against the wall. He cursed to himself through gritted teeth, taking the moment to lean there. He still hadn’t gotten used to not having that arm. He let out a pained grunt as he pushed himself up off the wall, continuing his labored march towards his desk.

 He finally collapsed heavily into his chair, the old rotting wood creaking unhappily as a grown man’s dead weight came down upon it. Gohan squeezed his eyes shut tightly before forcing them open again, trying his damnedest to keep himself from passing out. He wasn’t done yet. He still had a job to do.

 He reached up to rip the old scouter off the side of his face. It was stolen, of course. If Bulma ever found out he’d taken it, let alone what for… Well, he’d prefer not to think of that right now. He struggled for a moment to take the memory card out of the device – something that was definitely meant to be done with two hands, damn it all – and inserted it into the side of an old, barely functioning laptop. After a tense moment of loading, he let out a shaky sigh of relief. Good. All of the files were there. All that was left to do was encrypt them and leave some sort of explanation – strategically worded, of course.

 As the data from the scouter was running through the encryption program, Gohan queued up a recording program. The laptop’s camera turned on, and soon he found himself staring at an image of his own face on the screen. God, he looked awful. His scarred face what pale as a ghost and covered in a sheet of sweat, dark circles starting to form under his eyes. The fact that he was illuminated only by the light reflecting back at him from the laptop screen certainly didn’t help. There was nothing he could do about it, and at this point it didn’t really matter anymore. He wasn’t going to last long like this anyway.

 He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself as much as he could, trying to order his thoughts so he could come across as coherent as possible. Finally, he hit record.

 “Piccolo, I… I’m so sorry. I-I never should have—“ He cut himself off abruptly, already feeling the lump gathering tightly in his throat. No, he couldn’t afford to ramble on emotionally. This message was deadly important. He had to stick to the facts, and even then be as selective and concise with his words as possible. He took another deep breath before beginning again.

 “Piccolo, if you’re watching this, it means I’m dead… and I’ve failed…”

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks sat at the kitchen table of the Briefs estate, staring off into nothing as he waited for breakfast to be ready. He still couldn’t believe it was all over, that his last-ditch mission to the past had been a success. Sure, it wasn’t a success in the way he’d first imagined it. After all, there was no way he could have predicted the emergence of a greater threat than the Androids. Cell had been one hell of a curve ball, but with the help of friends and family from the past, they’d managed to defeat even him. It was a shame that Goku had to die to make it happen, but he’d been at peace with the whole thing in the end, so Trunks figured it was safe to file this one under his painfully sparse list of happy endings. If only his Master had been there to see it…

 “Oh shit, that’s right!” he gasped, frantically digging in his pockets. In all the excitement, he’d completely forgotten! Did he still have it? Oh, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he’d lost it! Finally, his fingers brushed against a familiar shape in his jacket pocket and he let out a sigh of relief. Crisis averted, he settled back down in his seat and pulled the item out of his pocket.

 It was an antique signet ring made of tarnished gold, the crest of the Demon King Piccolo engraved on its face. He turned the old piece of jewelry over in his hand. It made a certain amount of sense why Gohan would have sent such a thing back with him to the past. It must have been something Piccolo had given him, a sentimental memento of his own master. It wasn’t hard to understand why he’d want it returned to its original owner, but what didn’t make sense was how covert Gohan had been about the whole thing.

 It had been a full month after his Master had died fighting the Androids. Chi Chi, having gone through Gohan’s things, had found an envelope hidden away that had been addressed to Trunks. Inside had been this ring and a painfully short note telling him to give it to Piccolo when he saw him in the past. That alone was chilling enough. Gohan had always meant to be the one to pilot the time machine, not him. That he’d trusted Trunks with something like this meant that he’d known he wasn’t going to live long enough for this mission.

 “Hey, what’cha got there? Don’t tell me you’ve already found a cute girl to propose to! There sure are a lot more of them here than in your time, I’d bet!”

 Trunks looked up to see his mother smiling teasingly at him, a plate piled full of delicious food balanced on one hand. The young man looked down bashfully, instinctively closing his hand around the ring as though to hide it.

 “N-no, it’s nothing like that! It’s just something Gohan – _my_ Gohan – wanted me to give to Piccolo when I came back to this time. I’d completely forgotten about it until now…”

 “Oh? And just what would Piccolo want with some old ring? He doesn’t exactly strike me as the type to wear jewelry. Can I see it?”

 Trunks shrugged his shoulders, trading the ring for the large plate of food his mother was still carrying.

 “Dunno. I think it might have belonged to him. Or… was it his father? I-I’m not really sure which…”

 “Oh, trust me, Namekian family structures are weird enough on their own, let alone Piccolo’s in particular. I don’t _even_ wanna try to unravel that guy’s tangled family tree. You can never tell who’s the ‘mom,’ who’s the ‘dad,’ and who’s the same damn person but in a different body. Guess that’s what you get with a mono-gendered alien species.”

 As she spoke, she continued to idly examine the old ring. After a moment, something about it seemed to catch her eye, and she furrowed her brow in thought.

 “Hold on a second… What the hell is this?” she mumbled mostly under her breath as she ran her thumb along an indentation circling the face of the ring. After a bit of trial and error, she managed to slide the face of the ring around on a hidden hinge, revealing a tiny hollow space inside. Trunks nearly choked on the scrambled eggs he’d been shoveling into his mouth before jumping up to his feet in surprise.

 “Wh-whoah! What the hell?! It can _do_ that?!”

 “Oh sure.” Bulma replied nonchalantly, still examining the contents of the ring’s hidden compartment as she explained. “Assassins in medieval times used to use these all the time. They’d hide poison in the little compartment here. Then they’d blend in with all the nobles and such at a party or something like that, slip the poison in their target’s drink, and no one would be the wiser.”

 “Th-that’s horrible… Why the hell would Piccolo give Gohan a poison ring? And why would he send it back?”

 “Oh, no no no, I don’t think this thing’s had poison in it for ages…” she replied with an amused chuckle. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to hide _other_ things.”

 And with that, Trunks could do little more than stare in wonder as he watched his mother pull out what looked to be a micro SD card from the hidden hollow in the ring. Okay, now he felt pretty stupid. How could he have not found that? He’d been carrying it with him for the better part of a decade!

 “Well, well, well! Gohan’s a smart boy, even in the future!” she commented in what sounded like delight, though a rather mischievous grin spread itself across her face. “Now, here’s the million-zeni question: what on Earth could Gohan possibly be sending back to Piccolo that he needed to hide it from everyone else?”

 Trunks was still too much in shock to attempt to form a coherent answer. He didn’t understand. He thought Gohan had told him everything! What secrets could he still be keeping from him, even after death? Bulma almost seemed capable of reading his thoughts, leaning in conspiratorially with that devilish grin still plastered across her face.

 “Wanna find out~?” she asked in a sing-song voice, holding that memory card in front of his face tantalizingly. Trunks leaned back away from her, as though trying to resist the temptation she presented to him.

 “I-I dunno… I mean… Gohan _did_ send it back for Piccolo… Should we really be poking our nose into their business..?”

 “Oh, come on! Don’t be such a pansy!” Bulma retorted, her grin quickly morphing into a stubborn pout. “What harm will it do? After we take a look, all we have to do is put it back, close the ring up, and give it to Piccolo like nothing ever happened! He’ll never know we took a little peek! Hell, he might even ask us to look at it for him anyway! The guy doesn’t exactly seem computer literate. So what’s the big deal? Don’t you wanna know what it is? Isn’t not knowing just _eating_ at you inside?”

 Trunks could not have been leaning farther back in his chair without it tipping over on him, his mother bearing down on him more and more as she rambled on. He had to admit; she _did_ have a point. How would Piccolo know they looked at it? Even if that card contained some truly mind-blowing information, surely he had a good enough poker-face to play it off as though he hadn’t seen it, right? And it was from Gohan, so…

 “W-well… Alright, fine… We’ll take _one_ little peek, but then I’m giving it right to Piccolo and heading home to my own time before he has the chance to strangle me to death.”

 Bulma let out a squeal of delight before zooming off towards her lab with the memory card in hand. Trunks let out an exasperated sigh before grabbing one last piece of bacon off his plate and following after her. She was already at her computer and pouring over the files by the time he walked through the door. He cringed lightly at his mother’s nosey nature, but soon approached to peek over her shoulder.

 “So, anything interesting? That’s a lot of files…”

 “Yeah, and they’re all encrypted.”

 “W-wait, what? Why?”

 “Hell if I know. I don’t know what’s in them, and the file names don’t exactly give me many clues. I mean, I _could_ try to crack the password, but—oh, wait. There’s one that isn’t secured by anything.”

 Before Trunks had a chance to protest, Bulma had already opened the file. Any pretense of trying to stop this little intrusion of privacy all but evaporated the instant Gohan’s image appeared on the screen. God, he’d forgotten how tired his Master had looked there towards the end, and the lighting wherever he’d been when he’d recorded this only served to make him look even worse, almost sick.

   _‘Piccolo, I… I’m so sorry. I-I never should have—‘_ Gohan began urgently before abruptly cutting himself off and beginning again.

_‘Piccolo, if you’re watching this, it means I’m dead… and I’ve failed… But that doesn’t mean I can’t still do something to try and make it right again. What they did… I-it’s horrible, it’s unforgivable… And, I swear, if I’d had any idea what they would have done, I’d have never handed it over to them! I-I just… I didn’t know! A-and I was just a kid, I didn’t think I could handle it, even if – by some miracle – mother would have let me try, but… I-I should have taken that chance. I know that now. I-it’s all my fault, I should have—‘_

 Another pause, though this time it seemed to take him longer to calm himself down. He held his head in his hand for a long moment before finally looking back up at the camera again, his hand moving to tap nervously at the desktop next to his laptop.

_‘If you don’t know already, then you need to listen… There’s something out there far more dangerous than the Androids. It’s a bioweapon. I can’t say much more than that without showing my hand to whoever might watch this before you. I know it might not seem like it – especially to you – but please believe me when I say they had only the best intentions when they decided to make such a thing, it’s just… Well… You know better than anyone how the best intentions can be warped into something hideous…_

_‘I know you’ll be absolutely livid when you find out what happened, but I need you to put aside your anger for just long enough to help me clean up this mess. After that, you can hate all you want, you can even hate me if you want – you’d be more than justified in it. I’ve left you every scrap of information I could dig up on the situation, even the old files. You’re a smart guy – I know you’ll have figured out the password by now. Just promise me, no matter what happens in your time, you’ll give Trunks what he needs to end it here as well. You don’t have to tell him everything if you don’t want to – I know how personal this must all be for you – but I’m sure you’ll agree that this has to end. No one deserves this…’_

 The video cut out after that, but both Bulma and Trunks found themselves staring at the screen long after it had ended, confusion clear on both of their faces. The young Saiyan had thought seeing his Master’s face one more time would be comforting, but this… He wasn’t sure if what he just saw was supposed to be a cryptic message or the ramblings of a madman. Either way, it wasn’t the Gohan he knew as a child.

 “U-ummm… Trunks?” Bulma began slowly, clearly unsure about what she just saw. “What the hell was he talking about? What bioweapon?”

 “I honestly have no fucking idea…” he replied softly, equally as confused as his mother. “This is the first I’ve heard about anything stronger than the Androids. I mean, except for Cell, but there’s no way Gohan could have known about him! _None_ of us knew about him!”

 “Well… What if Gohan somehow found out about him? Maybe it really _is_ Cell he’s talking about? He could be considered a bioweapon, after all.”

 “I… I _guess_ …” Trunks admitted reluctantly. “But, if so, why all this secrecy? And why only tell Piccolo about it? Why wouldn’t he tell me or my mother about it?”

 Bulma answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

 “Well, it might not seem like it, but Piccolo’s always been something of a father figure to Gohan, even more so than Goku at times. I guess, for whatever reason, he felt most comfortable telling him than anyone else.”

 Trunks let out an uneasy groan, scratching at the back of his head. His mother’s theories seemed sound enough, and at the moment he didn’t have any good ideas that could explain it all away as easily. Perhaps it really was Cell he was trying to warn them about. Maybe he really did think telling Piccolo in secret was the best way to take care of it. Even so, it just didn’t feel right leaving it at that. His gut was telling him that there was more to this story than what was on the surface.

 Well, whatever it was, standing there thinking about it with so little information wasn’t doing anyone any good. Maybe this really was something he should just leave between Gohan and Piccolo.

 “Alright, well… We had our peek. Let’s put that memory card back and get it to Piccolo so I can head home. I’ve still got the Androids in my timeline to beat, after all.”

 “Okay, just let me make a copy of the files real quick. If it turns out we need them for something, it’ll be better if I have them all decrypted and ready to go.”

 “Right. Good idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

 Piccolo had spent most of the day wandering the innermost chambers of Kami’s Palace with Dende following close behind. It was more or less a glorified tour of the artifacts and other things kept hidden away from human eyes, but he wasn’t in much of a rush to get through it all in one day. Just about everything in there was important in some way, and each item deserved as much attention as any other. Besides, it was taking quite a long time for his mind to integrate all of the memories Kami had acquired over his long life as the previous Guardian. He hadn’t exactly ‘remembered’ what much of it all was just yet.

 Still, he was more than willing to be patient. After all, the training of a new Guardian wasn’t a quick process by any means. He would probably still be training the younger Namekian long after all of their current human and Saiyan friends had died of old age. It wouldn’t be a stretch to expect Dende to still be his apprentice even after another century of tutelage. At least, that’s how long it took Kami to learn it all originally.

 Piccolo stopped when he reached one of the artifacts he could remember everything about and opened his mouth to begin explaining it. He was stopped before a single word left his mouth by a sharp, stabbing pain at his temple. Had he not been just about to speak, he might have been able to mask the grunt of pain it dragged out of him. He rubbed at his temple, trying to massage it away at least a little bit. Damn these headaches… He’d been getting them ever since he merged with Kami. Was it masochistic to think the old man was hurting him on purpose out of spite, considering they were the same person again? Maybe, but it wouldn’t keep him from suspecting as such.

 “Are you okay?”

 He turned to look at the young boy following behind him. Dende was staring up at him, a clear look of concern on his face. Piccolo did his best to ignore the pain, distractingly annoying though it may have been, and attempted to give the boy a reassuring smile.

 “I’ll be fine. Just another headache.” He replied, though his assurances were made more or less moot when another sudden stabbing headache made him grimace. After this one faded a bit, he let out a sigh of defeat.

 “Alright, let’s take a break for now. Go see if Mr. Popo has anything he wants to show you. I’m going to go get some fresh air, okay?”

 That much seemed to satisfy Dende for now, and he quickly ran off to find the old genie. Piccolo let a small chuckle slip out as he watched him run off. That boy seemed to worry more about him than he did about Dende. He supposed that was a good quality to have for a Guardian.

 As promised, Piccolo wandered his way out to the Lookout surface for a well-needed break. He took a seat on the steps just outside the Palace entrance and let his head rest in his hands, closing his eyes to keep the bright sunlight from making his headache worse. He really could do without this bullshit right now. Of course, that was just his luck, wasn’t it? Every time things were looking up for him, something came up to ruin it. Granted, this was hardly an annoyance compared to some of the other things that had popped up in his life to fuck him over, but was one day without some kind of pain really too much to ask? He let out a low growl, cursing under his breath. Great, now Kami even had him _thinking_ like an old man…

 He was suddenly pulled from such thoughts by a curious sound. It was a female voice lightly humming a song somewhere nearby. That was definitely not something often heard all the way up there. Piccolo looked up, spotting the source of the humming almost immediately. A young woman in an old-fashioned black dress stood at the far edge of the Lookout, her gloved hands folded neatly in front of her skirt, her face hidden behind a black lace veil as though she’d just come from a funeral. She seemed to be staring straight back at him, but didn’t seem disturbed in the slightest about what he looked like – quite a departure from the reaction he usually got when humans saw him for the first time. She didn’t scream, she didn’t try to run. She simply stood there unflinchingly, as though she were fully in her right to be there, and hummed idly to herself.

 “Who are you? How’d you get up here?” he barked out as delicately as ever, rising up to his full intimidating height. Even with all this, the girl remained entirely unperturbed, continuing to hum her song. Okay, now he just felt insulted. Not only was she unafraid of him, but she was ignoring him as well! He let out a small growl, taking a step towards her.

 “Hey! Are you deaf as well as blind? Answer m—“

_‘Go tell Aunt Rhody…’_

 Piccolo froze mid-step when the girl’s song suddenly had words to it. There was just one problem; she wasn’t singing. She was still humming.

_‘Go tell Aunt Rhody…’_

 What the hell was happening here? These lyrics… Was he hearing them in his head? How? Had he heard this song before? Had Kami?

_‘Go tell Aunt Rhody that everybody’s dead.’_

 

* * *

 

 

 “Piccolo? Are you feeling any better?” Dende asked as he poked his head out from the main palace door. His new mentor wasn’t normally one to take breaks, let alone for this long. He soon spotted him just past the entrance steps, staring out towards the edge of the Lookout. The boy furrowed his brow. What was he staring at?

 “Is something wrong?” he asked, a little louder this time trying to get his attention. He still wasn’t answering. Starting to become a bit concerned, Dende stepped outside and cautiously approached his mentor from behind. As he did so, he peeked around the towering man’s side trying to catch a look at what he was staring at… Except he saw nothing.

 Suddenly, Piccolo began walking away from him towards the edge of the Lookout. Dende wasn’t sure what to do. What was going on? Should he follow him? Should he go get Mr. Popo? Or should he just let him go? Maybe he could sense something down below that Dende couldn’t? Whatever it was, he quickly lost the opportunity to do anything about it, as Piccolo promptly leapt off the Lookout the moment he reached the edge.


	2. The Quarantine Zone

 Trunks was soon in the air, well on his way towards Kami’s Lookout to meet up with Piccolo. He was in no hurry, and didn’t bother to fly at full speed. In fact, he may have been stalling a bit, if he was being honest with himself. Even with his mother’s very plausible explanation as to what Gohan’s warning could be about, he couldn’t help but have his doubts about it. Supposing it really was about Cell, why only tell Piccolo about it? There was nothing about Cell that couldn’t be told to everyone. Aside from that, the way Gohan was talking suggested that Piccolo was the only one who’d know how to take out whatever it was he was warning about. Sure, Kami had been the first to detect Cell’s presence, and Piccolo was the first to gather information on him, but that was only because he let Cell talk his ear off about himself as he waited to regenerate his arm. Even after that, he wasn’t shy in the slightest about telling the rest of them what he’d learned.

 What really got Trunks’ stomach tying itself into knots was just how guilty Gohan seemed about it all, like the whole situation was somehow his fault. ‘If I’d had any idea what they would have done, I’d have never handed it over to them.’ What was that supposed to mean? What could Gohan – apparently a child at the time – have possibly given to someone that would have contributed to the creation of a bioweapon? And to whom? And why would Piccolo know about it?

 Trunks’ hand clenched a little tighter around the old ring in his hand. Gohan had mentioned that he wanted Piccolo to tell him how to fix it all when he went back to the future. That meant Piccolo had to tell him _something_ about what was going on here. That settled it. He was going to come clean and admit that he and Bulma peeked at the message. Sure, Piccolo might get mad, but if this threat was as serious as his Master made it out to be, that anger would be well worth it if he could expedite the process of finding a solution to it all. Besides, Gohan wouldn’t have gone through the trouble to encrypt all the real data if he didn’t think Trunks would try to peek at it, right? With his mind made up, he sped up a bit to close the distance between himself and his destination.

 When Trunks arrived, Dende and Mr. Popo were already there waiting. As he cleared the edge of the Lookout, he could have sworn he caught sight of a very hopeful look on the young Guardian’s face. By the time he’d landed proper, however, that expression had all but faded into one of disappointment.

 “Is everything alright? You seem worried.” Trunks asked, sensing that perhaps it would be more polite to see what was bothering him before jumping straight to asking for the boy’s mentor.

 “It’s Piccolo. He just left a minute ago and I have no idea where he’s gone or why.”

 “Wh-what? Dammit, and he’s who I came all the way out here to see… Did he say anything when the left? Any hint as to where he might have gone?”

 Dende’s shoulders slumped at that, and he answered with a shake of his head.

 “He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even respond when I tried talking to him.”

 Well, that certainly was weird. Piccolo wasn’t exactly a sparkling conversationalist, but it wasn’t like him to outright ignore someone like that, let alone someone he actually liked, like Dende. Trunks closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, trying to sense Piccolo’s energy, but couldn’t locate it. Could he be concealing his ki for some reason? He opened his eyes and turned his attention back down towards Dende.

 “I can’t sense him anywhere…” he grumbled to himself, though Dende still seemed to overhear him and fidget nervously at the news. “I-I’m sure it’s fine though. He probably just went to see Gohan. I’ll go check over at his place. If he’s there, I’ll make sure he comes right back, okay?”

 That much seemed to reassure the young Guardian for now. Trunks flashed him a confident smile to assure him further before taking off towards the East as he promised.

 

* * *

 

 

 Despite the trip being twice the distance as traveling from West City to the Lookout, Trunks managed to fly all the way out to the East District in half the time. He wasn’t entirely sure what brought about this new sense of urgency. Piccolo was a grown-ass man; he could go wherever he wanted to without having to answer to anyone, but… Could it be Dende’s concerns influencing his own? Or was it because this just happened to occur at the same time that they’d discovered his Master’s cryptic message?

 Soon enough, Trunks touched down outside the Son residence. Now that he was this close, it was painfully obvious that Piccolo wasn’t there. He let out a frustrated grumble, running a hand roughly through his hair. What should he do now? He didn’t know anywhere else the reclusive Namekian would frequent…

 “Oh, hey Trunks! What’s up?”

 Trunks looked over when he heard someone call out to him, catching sight of Gohan as he poked his head out of his bedroom window. Just seeing the younger Saiyan was enough to bring a smile to his face. He made his way over to the window so the boy didn’t have to lean out as far to talk. Through the widow he could clearly see the school books lying open on the desk, as well as a small radio on the corner playing upbeat music.

 “Hey, Gohan. I was kinda hoping to find Piccolo here. Have you seen him around lately?”

 “No, he hasn’t been by today. Is something wrong?”

 “To be honest, I’m not sure… See, the Gohan from my time left something for me to give to him, but when I went to meet him at the Lookout, he was gone. Dende said he just took off without saying anything.”

 “That’s weird… I wonder where he went off to in such a hurry.”

 Trunks let out a sigh. Well, this little detour hadn’t gotten him anywhere. If anything, all he did was needlessly worry Gohan. Now what was he supposed to do? Aimlessly search the planet for a seven-and-a-half-foot tall green man who probably didn’t want to be found? As he tried to think of what to do next, a news report on the radio caught his attention.

_‘Following Mr. Satan’s heroic defeat of the creature known as ‘Cell,’ a vast majority of the people reported missing during that timeframe have been found alive and well. The only exception seems to be those reported missing from the town of Bakersville, a West City suburb located adjacent to Gingertown. A preliminary investigation has turned up several bodies that show signs of having been mauled by a large animal, possibly a bear. Furthermore, investigators have discovered that several buildings have a sizeable infestation of a potent black mold, the exact nature of which is currently unknown. Officials have quarantined the town and ask that all unauthorized personnel stay well away until all buildings have been decontaminated.’_

 By the end of the report, both Gohan and Trunks found themselves staring at the radio. The mention of Cell was what had caught their attention, but some things about that report didn’t add up.

 “D-did you hear that?” Trunks asked, his attention shifting restlessly to Gohan. “Bakersville, right next to Gingertown. Isn’t that where Cell first showed up?”

 “Yeah… But why is everyone there still missing? What about the wish we made? Shenlong was supposed to bring back everyone killed by Cell and the Androids…”

 “Unless they _weren’t_ killed by Cell…”

 “If not Cell, then who? I don’t think a bear could have killed an entire town. And what about that mold they mentioned? This is the first time I’ve heard about it, and that kind of stuff doesn’t just pop up overnight. At least, not enough to quarantine a whole town.”

 Gohan had a good point. He wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Cell, but the whole thing reeked of something foul. Perhaps Piccolo could wait a little while longer. This seemed like something that warranted investigation.

 “I’m going to go check it out. It doesn’t seem like something that should just be left alone. You coming?”

 Gohan gave a determined nod, and was halfway through pulling himself through the open window before he thought better of it. He glanced back over his shoulder at his bedroom door, let out a dejected sigh, and climbed back into his window.

 “I-I better not… I promised Mom I would focus on my studies from now on. She’ll be super mad if I go back on my promise after only a week.” He replied, hanging his head in disappointment. “Sorry…”

 “It’s okay. I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle on my own. I’ll let you know what I find afterward, okay?”

 Gohan still looked quite disappointed, but seemed to understand that it was the best he could hope for in this situation. Trunks gave the younger Saiyan a wave before taking off towards the West once more, heading as quickly as he could to Bakersville.

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks found himself hovering over the abandoned town, making sure to stay out of sight of the police and investigators down below. They seemed to be staying around the perimeter for now, outside the large chain-link fence that had been erected hastily to keep curious fools out. Too bad they didn’t expect some curious fools to be able to fly.

 There wasn’t much about the town that stood out at first glance. In fact, besides the clear lack of people, everything looked untouched. None of the buildings were destroyed, or even slightly damaged for that matter. He might have been fooled into thinking this was one of the neighborhoods that had fallen victim to Cell when he was still covertly absorbing people, except there were no clothes lying in the street like all the others. If there were any signs of struggle, even from something like a bear, he didn’t see any of it out there in the streets.

 After taking one last chance to inspect the town from above, Trunks decided he wouldn’t gleam any new information unless he dove in head first and saw things from the ground. He dropped down in the middle of a neighborhood, making sure he was still well out of sight of the people around the edges of the suburb. Everything looked normal enough from down here as well.

 “Dammit…” he grumbled to himself, scratching at the back of his head. What the hell was he going to do now? Missing, dead, or whatever, he wouldn’t feel right just busting into people’s houses and poking around. Besides, if he were caught, he’d probably get arrested for attempted looting or some such nonsense. That was one phone call to Capsule Corp. he really didn’t want to have to make…

 Trunks was just about to consider this attempted investigation a failure and head home when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look just in time to catch the tail end of a piece of white cloth as it disappeared behind a nearby house. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought that was…

 “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me… He’s been _here_ the whole time?” he growled under his breath before taking off at a sprint, hurrying around the corner of the house. When he rounded the corner, he caught sight of a white cape fluttering behind a tall green man as he calmly walked between the houses towards the next street over.

 “Piccolo! Hey, wait a second!” he called out, but Piccolo didn’t seem to hear him. He just continued across the next street, up someone’s driveway, and simply walked into a house as though he owned the place. Trunks cursed under his breath and continued the chase.

 The door had been left slightly ajar, but whether that was an accident or on purpose was a mystery at the moment. A quick peek through the few inches that were left open didn’t reveal much; the lights were all off and the entire property seemed as still and as silent as the rest of the town. It took another long moment of debating with himself before Trunks finally got over his aversion to trespassing and finally pushed past the door.

 The first thing that hit him when he walked into the house was a strong, musty odor. It was only then that Trunks remembered the whole point of the quarantine; the mold outbreak. He hastily covered his mouth and nose with his hand and tried his best not to breathe so deeply. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew this to be a useless, silly thing to do – considering his hand would do virtually nothing to filter out the mold spores in the air – but fuck it, it made him feel better about it.

 Trunks advanced cautiously through the foyer of the house, trying not to knock into anything as his eyes adjusted to the low level of light. The dim sunlight streaming in through the windows did little to light his way, but he did as best he could to use what little he got. He soon ended up in the kitchen, at which point a new odor wormed its way past the flimsy protection of his hand. It was the foul, sickeningly sweet scent of something rotting. He soon became acutely aware of the faint buzzing of flies nearby, and it didn’t take long for him to narrow it down to the kitchen table.

 He wasn’t entirely sure what had been for dinner, but he was sure it had been meant for several weeks ago. He quickly backed as far away as he could from the table, practically hugging against the wall as he made his way around the rotting mess. Small comfort though it may have been, he was infinitely glad that he already had his hand over his mouth, otherwise he would have surely puked. What happened to the people of this house that they would just disappear without a trace right in the middle of dinner?

 By the time he’d gotten to the other side of the kitchen, he practically sprinted out into the next hall. Forgetting where he was for a moment, he drew in a deep breath of what he had hoped would be fresh air to clear that disgusting smell from his nose. What he got instead was the same musty odor that he’d encountered when he first entered the house, albeit significantly stronger than earlier. He took a moment to look around, quickly taking notice of the fuzzy black patches that covered the walls and ceiling. He immediately covered his mouth with his hands again.

 “Gahh, fucking _gross!_ Why the hell would Piccolo hang around in a place like this?!” he lamented aloud, his voice echoing off the silent walls despite being muffled by his hands. No, in all seriousness, _why?!_ What the hell could be so interesting in this disgusting house that Piccolo would hide out here without telling even his close friends about it? None of it made any goddamn sense!

 “You shouldn’t have come here.”

 Ah, finally! A sane statement in an ocean of insane happenings! Trunks would have readily chimed in his agreement if he’d gotten the chance to do so. He felt a hand come down to firmly clamp onto his shoulder, and before he had a chance to react, he was spun around to face the man that had addressed him seemingly out of nowhere. He just barely managed to register the shadowed features of Piccolo’s silhouette before a fist slammed into the middle of his face.

 The blow had come out of nowhere. Trunks hadn’t even gotten the chance to brace himself, let alone block, and soon found himself lying flat on his back before he had even registered what had just happened. Did… did Piccolo just _punch_ him? Why? What the hell did he ever do to deserve getting punched like that? Okay, yeah, he peeked at Gohan’s message, but he shouldn’t even know about that yet!

 Before Trunks had a chance to get up and confront him about it, he just barely caught sight of Piccolo’s foot just as it came slamming down on his head.

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks let out a groan as he started to come to. His head was killing him, and he could feel a streak of dried blood running down his face from his nose. Dammit, just how hard had Piccolo hit him? It felt like he was going to pass out again any second. He fought it off as best he could, willing his eyes to open despite his shaky consciousness. His vision was blurry as hell, and he could only make out vague shapes in front of him. After a moment, his vision began to get clearer, and he was able to get a better idea of what was going on.

 He seemed to be sitting in a wooden chair of sorts, his wrists lashed tightly to the arms with rope. He’d be able to break it easily, if only he could get himself awake enough to do so. As it was, he couldn’t even find the strength to lift his head up properly. Where the hell was he? Still in the house? These questions took a back seat in his mind when, just past his knees, he saw the bottom half of a figure step into view in front of him. From what little he could see, it seemed to be a young woman dressed all in black, her skirt going down to about mid-calf, her slender legs covered by black stockings, a pair of old-fashioned Mary Janes on her feet. He wanted to look up to see what her face looked like, but his head didn’t seem to want to cooperate with him.

 “This is the one.” came a soft female voice he might have considered beautiful if it hadn’t sent a chill up his spine for some reason. “He’s from _that_ time. I could have sworn I saw him killed, though…”

 “This is a different one, but he’s essentially the same. He’ll serve the same purpose.”

 Wait… That was _Piccolo’s_ voice. What was going on? Who was this woman? How did he know her? And what were they talking about?

 “Does that mean I can make him a part of the family now? I was promised he could be. He was supposed to play with me.”

 The hell was that supposed to mean? What was she going to do to him?!

 “No, not yet. He’s still useful to us like this.”

 “But he _said_ …”

 “I know, and you’ll get what you want eventually, but you have to be patient. There’s more work to be done first. You’ll just have to trust me.”

 What followed for a long moment was silence, and even though Trunks had no idea what they were talking about, he could feel the tension in the air. Finally, the girl responded.

 “Very well…” she said softly before turning away from the captive Saiyan and walking away into the darkness. Once she was gone, a much larger figure stepped into view from the side. A strong hand reached down to grab him by the jaw, turning his head to finally look up. He found himself staring up into Piccolo’s face, though he seemed to be a much paler green than he remembered.

 “Showtime’s over, kid. Time to go back to sleep.”

 At that, Trunks half-expected to be punched out cold again. Instead, as though having received an order from a master hypnotist, the world obediently went black on him once more.


	3. Voices From the Past

 When Trunks next awoke, he found himself on his back staring up at an orange evening sky. How long had he been out? He’d left Capsule Corp. sometime in the morning, yet it looked like the sun was already dipping down below the horizon.

 He suddenly sat bolt upright, the memory of where he was the last time he’d woken up suddenly coming back to him. Piccolo! He’d been following him through that disgusting abandoned house before being knocked out cold. Then there was that woman… But where had they gone? And how did he get outside again? Could they have dumped him out there? Why go through all the trouble to catch him like that only to let him go again?

 He pushed himself up to his feet with a grunt before resting his hand against his throbbing head. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He sure as hell wasn’t about to go poking around in that house again. Besides, he doubted very much that Piccolo would still be hanging around after all that. Besides, his head was killing him, making it impossible to think straight. Perhaps it was worth leaving all this for later, after he had the chance to rest up for a bit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks was infinitely grateful that Bakersville was just next to West City if only because it meant his trip home was mercifully short. It felt like he’d been doing nothing but flying around all day and he was really getting tired of it. He landed outside of Capsule Corp., and was immediately greeted by the single most comforting scent he’d had the pleasure to smell all day. His Grandmother’s cooking; certainly a welcome change from the mold and rot he’d just been surrounded by. He supposed it would be around dinner time, a point that his loudly growling stomach seemed to confirm for him. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, after all. He hurried over to the door of the Briefs’ residence, throwing it open to eagerly rush in.

 He froze dead in place before he had the chance to properly step through the door, as his path was blocked by an immovable object. Vegeta had been standing just on the other side of the door, arms folded across his chest, a seemingly-permanent scowl affixed firmly on his face. Trunks instinctively took a step back in retreat, but knew deep inside that escape was impossible. His father’s hand shot out almost faster than he could see, firmly grabbing the younger Saiyan by the lower jaw and pulling him inside.

 “Been busy, haven’t you, boy?” Vegeta hissed out, a note of accusation in his voice, his gaze clearly glancing over the streak of dried blood tarnishing the lower half of his face. Trunks hastily moved to wipe it away, though he knew it to be futile at that point. Was he really so out of it that he’d forgotten about that? The Saiyan prince let out a low growl, opening his mouth to lay into the boy once more. Thankfully, their little ‘bonding moment’ was interrupted when Bulma, carrying Trunks’ infant self, walked in from the next room.

 “Oh, hey Trunks! How’d it go with Piccolo?” she asked casually, treating the tense situation before her as little more than an everyday occurrence. Trunks’ eyes shifted towards his mother for but a moment, knowing that giving Vegeta even the slightest impression of being ignored was dangerous indeed.

 “Yeah, uhhh… I’d say it could have gone better…” he admitted meekly, at which point the already vice-like grip clamping down on either side of his jaw grew even tighter.

 “Are you telling me the _Namek_ did this? The next words out of your mouth had better be an itemized list of his bones you’ve shattered in response, otherwise you’ll end up with far worse than a goddamned bloody nose!”

 “Jeez, calm down, Vegeta. It’s not that big a deal.” Bulma scolded flippantly, moving to get between the two to prevent a fight that would surely destroy the house. Vegeta let go of his son’s face, only to point a threatening finger her way in preparation for one of his rants on the value of Saiyan pride. Before he could get much farther than a seething ‘See here, woman!’ she’d already turned her back on him to give Trunks her undivided attention.

 “So, let me guess; he found out we peeked at the data and wasn’t too happy about it.” she conjectured calmly, though Trunks was having a difficult time focusing on her and not the absolutely furious Saiyan prince behind her, who looked as though he would have an aneurism if he couldn’t find someone to choke the life out of right then and there.

 “N-no, not exactly… In fact, I never even got the chance to give him Gohan’s message. When I went to see him at the Lookout, Dende had said he’d gone missing earlier that day. I eventually tracked him down, but the second I found him, he ambushed me and knocked me out cold.”

 “Ambushed?! _Ambushed_ , he says!” Vegeta shouted incredulously, as though it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard in his life. “My own _son_ , ambushed and knocked unconscious by a damned _Namek_ who could barely take on Cell in his imperfect form! What’s next, boy? Planning to have your ass beat by Krillin? How much more embarrassment are you going to bring me before you finally go back to your own time?”

 “I said cool it, Vegeta!” Bulma interjected briefly, turning back to Trunks once more before Vegeta could get out a retort.

 “Go on. That can’t be all you found, right?”

 Trunks hesitated before going on, scratching at the back of his head and staring at the ground.

 “I-it’s a little fuzzy after that… I remember there was a girl with Piccolo, about my age. They spoke like they knew each other. They were hanging around a quarantine zone for some strange mold outbreak, though I don’t know if that’s related at all.”

 He glanced back up at his mother, expecting her to have an expression on her face equally as confused as he felt. Instead, he found her staring at him with wide eyes.

 “Wh-what? What’d I say?” he asked hesitantly. Bulma took a moment to glance behind her, seemingly to check to see if Vegeta was still around. Luckily, he seemed to have stormed off sometime during their discussion, leaving the two of them alone. She turned back to him with a grim look in her eyes.

 “While you were gone, I managed to decrypt one of the files I copied from that chip in the ring. I think you need to see it right away. If what you say about Piccolo and this girl is true, then I think we might just have found Gohan’s bioweapon.”

 

* * *

 

 

 After Bulma put her infant son to bed for the night, she and Trunks were once again at her computer in her lab. She worked quickly to pull up the file she’d mentioned before, and soon they found themselves watching yet another video file. This one wasn’t a hastily recorded affair using a laptop camera as Gohan’s had been. This one looked official, almost as though it had been taken from government archives. A title card gave them a bit of information, though not much. Post-Incident Interview #5, October 9, 2014, Interviewee: [REDACTED], Interviewer: [REDACTED]. When the actual video itself started, it showed a man in a lab coat sitting in a lone chair in an otherwise empty room, his face obscured by a large black box that had been edited into the video later on. It began with a man – somewhere off-camera – addressing this apparent scientist.

_‘To start off, please explain a bit about the two subjects involved in the incident and how they relate to one another.’_

_‘The incident involved assets from two separate projects of ours. The first, known as E-001, is the final product of our human bioweapons project, the first of the perfected E-Series assets.’_

_‘That’s the girl, correct? Eveline?’_

_‘Correct. She was created by introducing the genome of mutamycete, our ‘vicariant evolution’ fungus, to a human embryo. As a result, she is able to fabricate this mutamycete, which we’ve come to simply refer to as ‘mold,’ from her own body. When a subject is infected by this mold, they typically enter what could be considered a schizophrenic state where the subject is reported to experience persistent hallucinations, both auditory and visual, of the controlling asset. This quickly breaks down the mind’s natural barriers and opens the way for E-001’s brainwashing abilities. Naturally, this makes her a very valuable weapon to have, as she can very quickly turn hostile enemy subjects into her willing servants.’_

_‘I see. And the other asset involved?’_

_‘The other asset was acquired from [REDACTED] after their funding dried up several years back. Subject NTA-01 is, as best as we can tell, a humanoid creature of supposedly extra-terrestrial origin that had been discovered in the northern mountains of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It possesses remarkable regenerative abilities, which is what had initially interested us in the entity. It also possesses telepathic abilities the likes of which we’ve yet to be able to reproduce ourselves, as well as a physical strength well beyond anything a normal human is capable of. The latter, unfortunately, makes dealing with NTA-01 a challenge. We are required to keep it at least partially sedated at all times, and we had to create custom equipment just to be able to keep it bound while we performed our tests on it.’_

_‘I take it this NTA-01 was essentially uncontrollable?’_

_‘For the most part, yes. We’d tried everything from chemicals to mental conditioning, but the entity is exceptionally stubborn. We were under intense pressure to make some kind of headway into possibly weaponizing it, so the idea of using the E-001 asset to try to assert some kind of control over it was eventually considered and ultimately implemented.’_

_‘And that’s how the two came to be involved with one another?’_

_‘Correct. NTA-01’s cells had shown a remarkable susceptibility to the mutamycete infection, more so than human cells in fact, so we assumed E-001 would be able to assert her control over it without difficulty.’_

_‘I assume that experiment didn’t go to plan.’_

_‘Not quite, no. The mold infection spread quickly throughout NTA-01’s cells, particularly in the brain, but E-001 seemed unable – or perhaps unwilling – to take full control over it.’_

_‘She refused to do her job? Would that not be considered a fundamental flaw in the E-Series asset?’_

_‘No. E-001 has never failed to take over a human’s mind before or since the incident. This was a unique case, entirely because of NTA-01. Its telepathic abilities were more extensive than we’d anticipated, and it was able to fight fire with fire, so to speak.’_

_‘You mean it took control of E-001?’_

_‘More like it pushed back. Neither could truly control the other, and it was a situation E-001 had never encountered before. However, instead of lashing out at each other, the two assets seemed to have formed a symbiotic relationship with one another. They kept a mutual telepathic link open between themselves, and it was even observed that E-001’s thralls, though they’d had no contact whatsoever with NTA-01, would in fact exhibit the creature’s influence over that of E-001’s.’_

_‘And that’s when the decision to separate them was made?’_

_‘Correct. While this cooperation between the two assets could potentially reap some benefits in future iterations of the mutamycete project, the possibility of NTA-01 enacting control over one of E-001’s thralls to, say, attempt to convince it to release it from its bindings was just too high a risk to take before we found a way of reliably controlling it. After this incident, the two were immediately sent to separate facilities to mitigate the possibility of a joint escape effort. E-001 is already en route to our labs in Central America, and we’re currently preparing to transport NTA-01 to another [REDACTED] facility in Eastern Europe.’_

_‘That’ll be all, doctor. Thank you for your time.’_

 The video ended after that. Trunks wasn’t sure he understood everything of what was discussed, but he knew enough for what he’d just heard to send a chill down his spine.

 “Y-you’ve gotta be kidding me… Does this mean that girl I saw was the bioweapon?”

 “I’d say that’s a fairly safe assumption to make, given the circumstances. I don’t think it’s the same girl they’re talking about in this. You saw the date, right?” Bulma replied, turning in her chair to look up at him. He thought back to the beginning of the video. October 9, 2014. That was a date on the old calendar, meaning that video was nearly eight-hundred years old. He may not have been able to see the girl’s face in that brief moment where she’d been standing in front of him, but she sure as hell didn’t strike him as some eight-hundred-year-old crone.

 “So that would mean someone managed to recreate what they did back then… But how did she even get here? The way Gohan was talking, it seemed like she was only a threat in the future, and all Piccolo was supposed to do was tell me how to defeat her when I got back. He said nothing about her being here in the past!”

 “Well…” Bulma began, “If this is the first you’re hearing of her from either timeline, I can only guess that she came here from the future.”

 “I suppose, but how? It’s not like some other scientist in my time invented a time machine at the same time that you did. I’ve got the only one!”

 “Except you _don’t_.”

 That retort had caught Trunks a bit off guard. He looked down at his mother for an explanation, but she merely replied with an all-too-familiar look. It was a look that meant she wanted him to figure it out for himself. Another time machine… Wait, Cell had come from an alternate future in a time machine, hadn’t he? Had the girl done something similar? Was there yet another copy of his time machine out there to be found?

 No… No, perhaps the answer was a bit simpler than that. The girl had taken over Bakersville, which was just next to Gingertown. Cell had attacked Gingertown first because of its proximity to his arrival point. It made sense that the girl would do the same, which would suggest…

 “You mean… She could have come here in the same time machine as Cell? But how’s that possible? Why would Cell let her do such a thing after going through all the trouble to steal it for himself?”

 “Well, if she has the same abilities as the girl they spoke about in the video, then it’s not too crazy to think that she infected Cell enough to get him to let her stow away with him.”

 “Would that even work? I mean, Cell’s made up from DNA from a bunch of different species. Doesn’t that mold stuff work best on humans?”

 “A lot of Cell’s, well… _cells_ … are from Piccolo. If his immune system is mostly Namekian, it would have been very easy for her to infect him.”

 At that, Trunks couldn’t help but stare down at his mother, brows furrowed in confusion.

 “Wait… Why would it matter if he had a Namekian immune system? That video said nothing about Namekians…”

 “But it _did_ say something about an alien with regenerative abilities. I don’t know about you, but that sure as hell sounds like a Namekian to me.”

 “Yeah, but… It’s still an assumption. I mean, how many Namekians do you think there were here on Earth eight-hundred years ago?”

 “At least one, apparently. Look, check this out…” Bulma turned back towards her computer, going through the folder containing the few files that had been decrypted so far. “After watching that video the first time, I had my decryption program prioritize any file with ‘NTA-01’ in the file name. One of the things I got was this photo right here.”

 What appeared next was a still image taken in what looked like a laboratory, a chair made of what almost looked like solid, six-inch thick steel bolted to the floor in the center in the room. Sitting in the chair, thick steel bands binding his arms, legs, and chest, was a Namekian. The captive alien – clad in little more than linen hospital pants – shared Piccolo’s build, but little more than that. His face was quite different from the lone adult Namekian Trunks was familiar with; a hooked nose as opposed to Piccolo’s straight, pointy one; prominent cheekbones and jawline where Piccolo’s face had far softer features.

 Whoever this was in the photo, he certainly didn’t look well. His skin clung tight to his muscles and bones, and he was far too pale a green to be considered in good health. His onyx eyes, defiant though they still seemed to be, were surrounded by dark circles, as though he hadn’t been allowed to sleep for days on end. He’d clearly been held there against his will, and Trunks didn’t want to imagine what sort of things had been done to the poor man all those centuries ago.

 Unfortunately, a far darker thought then occurred to him; the implications this new information had on the present. He thought back to the interview video they’d just watched, replacing the nebulous concept of the unknown ‘NTA-01’ with this Namekian.

 “N-no… So it wasn’t just by chance that the girl took control of Piccolo first out of everyone on the planet… She targeted him _specifically_ because she knew a Namekian could draw on and amplify her own abilities!” Trunks exclaimed, a note of panic rising in his voice towards the end. How could this be happening? Gohan had said that Piccolo would be the key to solving this crisis. What the hell was he supposed to do now that their biggest ally had been the first to be infected?

 “Shit… That’s it! I’m going back and dragging Piccolo out of there!” he announced before turning to sprint towards the door. Bulma immediately jumped up out of her chair and made to chase after him.

 “Trunks, wait! You shouldn’t go back there alone! It’s too dangerous!”

 The young Saiyan stopped just long enough to turn a determined eye back towards his mother.

 “What else would you have me do?! Just sit here and wait for that little bitch to infect the world and kill everyone?! There’s no way I can let that happen! I’ve gotta do something before it’s too late!”

 “Not by yourself, you don’t!” Bulma snapped back without missing a beat. Trunks flinched a bit despite himself, that scolding tone all too familiar to him. After a moment, she let out a sigh, continuing on in a much softer voice.

 “Look, Trunks… You can’t carry the weight of the whole world on your shoulders. We may not have Goku anymore, but you’ve got friends and family here that would be more than happy to help you out with this if only you’d ask them. Why don’t you take a little while to rest? I’ll call around and see who can come help.”

 At that, Trunks gave a sigh of defeat. There was no denying that running off back into the quarantine zone without preparation would probably be the single stupidest decision of his life. Besides, a quick meal and a bit of rest didn’t sound too bad at the moment.

 “You’re right, Mom… Thanks.”


	4. The Prisoner With No Parole

 He had little more to do with his time than to stare down at the thick steel bands that held his wrists tight to the chair he sat in. He had similar bindings around his ankles, his legs, his waist, his chest… just about everything, really. How insulting. He would have no trouble breaking out of such feeble things if those bastards hadn’t given him enough sedatives to kill an elephant. As it stood, he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone attempt to shatter those steel bonds.

 Staying awake was the greater priority at the moment, in any case. He knew what they did to him when he let sleep take him. He saw the fresh sutures running down his torso whenever he awoke again. The disgust he felt at the mere thought of those damned primates with their hands rooting around inside him was almost as strong as the fear he felt when he realized he had no idea what they’d taken out of him – or worse, what they’d put _in_.

 The last time was one of the worst. The scar they left wasn’t so large as usual, and he’d had enough energy left to heal it up in a few hours, but he’d had the strangest headache ever since. It didn’t hurt so much as it clouded his senses and made him feel ill. He could swear he was even starting to hear things, but after everything he’d been through, such a thing wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest.

 A child’s light laughter echoed into the room from an indeterminate direction. There it was again. He knew that voice. It belonged to the subject of another project the lab was working on. He could hear whenever she spoke to the doctors. In fact, he could hear everything that went on in that hellhole of a lab. His inhuman hearing was one of the few things he’d managed to keep secret from those monkeys. If they knew, they’d put him in a soundproof room. _That_ would be true torture.

 Another giggle kept him from drifting off. He willed himself to lift his head and look around, despite being convinced that he would find nothing but the bare white walls of his room waiting for him. It was never real. There was never anyone there. They were all too afraid to approach him while he was alert like this. Much to his surprise, he found a small figure standing just in front of where he sat.

 It was a little human girl, likely around ten years old. She had pale skin, black hair that fell down past her shoulders, and she wore a plain black dress. The fact that she’d somehow managed to waltz right into the single most secure room in the building – and without even using the door, it seemed – wasn’t what surprised him. Rather, it was the fact that she stared up at him without an ounce of fear in her eyes. That certainly was a first. No human had seen him for the first time and reacted without surprise, or shock, or even disgust in some cases. They were such vain, superficial creatures, after all.

 “You’re not like all the others.” She remarked in that matter-of-fact manner that only children seemed able to pull off. He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. It had been so long since he actually had someone to talk to that he seemed to have forgotten how. Besides, she spoke English. He understood it well enough, having learned from the doctors and background chatter of the labs, but the only human language he’d ever spoken aloud was Russian. He wasn’t sure which one would come out if he forced himself to speak now.

 “My name’s Eveline. What’s yours?”

 He didn’t reply again, but not because he physically couldn’t. This time, he simply didn’t have an answer for her. He had no name. He merely shook his head in response. Eveline tilted her head slightly.

 “You don’t have one?” she asked rhetorically, a small frown forming on her face. Then, she seemed to get an idea, her smile returning once more.

 “I know! You want to get out of here, right? I do, too. If we work together, we can do it. I don’t wanna live in a lab anymore. I wanna live in a _real_ house, with a _real_ family. If I help you get out, I want you to be my daddy. Deal?”

 He was genuinely taken aback by the offer. She wanted him to be her _father?_ He’d never met a human who was willing to put so much trust in him. She really didn’t care what he looked like at all, did she? Perhaps it was that one novel notion that made him finally respond, though his voice had gone faint and raspy from years of disuse.

 “Deal.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks awoke with a start when some loud noise roused him from sleep. He sat bolt upright, frantically looking around the room as though to confirm his surroundings. He was indeed what served as his bedroom for now, the pastel blue walls reflecting the dim sunlight that peeked in through the blinds. He lifted his hands up to his face if only to test if he could, and sighed in relief when he found he could move freely.

 Just what the hell was that? Had it all been a dream? It felt more real than any dream he’d ever had. And then there was that girl, Eveline. She was the one they were talking about in the video, the one they’d created to produce and control that strange mold. Why did he dream something like that about her? And was that even what she’d really looked like, or a fabrication of his own imagination?

 He was pulled from his thoughts when the noise that had initially woken him rang out again. Someone was knocking at the door.

 “Come in.” he called out. A moment later, the door cracked open and his mother poked her head in.

 “Everyone’s here and ready to head down to Bakersville. I already told them everything we know about what’s going on, so that should save you some time.”

 “Thanks. I’ll be out as soon as I get dressed.”

 She gave him a nod before leaving him to his business. It only took him a minute or so to get his clothes on and head out into the living room. Everyone was indeed already out there and waiting, each wearing their respective fighting attire. Well, everyone except for one.

 “No Tenshinhan?” Trunks asked after giving the group a quick glance over. Krillin shrugged his shoulders in response.

 “No one could get a hold of him. I swear, that guy’s more elusive than Piccolo sometimes.”

 “You talk as though we actually need all of us for this.” came Vegeta’s grumbling from where he leaned against the far wall. “How hard is it to knock out one Namekian and drag his ass back here to be treated? I’d wager I could do it all on my own, if only I gave enough of a shit about him to bother.”

  “Then… why are you here at all?” Yamcha asked cautiously, staring back at the Saiyan prince with an arched eyebrow. Vegeta replied with a scoff.

 “Because I’ll be damned if my own son is going to get taken out in one shot again by that green shit-stain without me around to beat the boy’s ass for it!”

 Trunks flinched lightly at his father’s not-so-passive aggressive comment. Yeah, he should have expected as much. He was just glad Vegeta agreed to come along at all. Even with all they’d found out, he was still unsure of exactly what they’d be dealing with when they went back to find Piccolo. With that thought, Trunks’ attention shifted to the final member of the group.

 “Hey, Gohan… Are you sure it’s okay for you to come along? Didn’t you promise your mother that you wouldn’t fight anymore?”

 Gohan looked up at Trunks with a spark of determination in his eye.

 “Sure, mom might be mad when I get back, but there’s no way I’m gonna just sit by while Piccolo’s in trouble!”

 Trunks couldn’t help but smile at that. He should have known that would be his answer. Hell, he doubted he’d be able to talk the younger Saiyan out of going if he tried. As close as Gohan was to Piccolo, there was no keeping him from trying to help. With that, he turned to the group.

 “Alright, if everyone knows what’s going on, then there’s no point in sticking around here much longer. Let’s get going.”

 “Wait just a minute!”

 Trunks had barely turned towards the door when he heard his mother interject. He turned back to see Bulma standing there with several half-faced gas masks hanging from her arm.

 “There’s no way you guys are going into that quarantine zone without some sort of protection from the mold. Here, wear these when you get there.”

 Trunks hadn’t even thought of that, and now that she mentioned it, walking headlong into that infested hellhole without some kind of breathing protection would have been downright stupid of them. Each of them eagerly accepted their mask as it was handed to them. All but one…

 “Vegeta…” Bulma grumbled out in a low, warning tone as she stood before the Saiyan prince with her arm outstretched, offering him his mask. Vegeta merely glowered down at it, his lip curling as though what she offered was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.

 “Take it, Vegeta!” she growled, shoving the thing at his chest. He gave the woman a growl in return, knocking the mask away with the back of his hand.

 “Forget it! You think I’d hide away from something as pathetic as a little _mold?!_ ”

 “A ‘little mold’ that can control your damn _mind_ , jackass!”

 “I’d like to see it try! There’s nothing in this goddamned galaxy that can control me!”

 After that exchange, Bulma had clearly hit her limit when it came to her patience in dealing with the stubborn prince. Her fists balled up at her sides, her face going red with anger. She was clearly about to start one hell of a shouting match with him before Trunks stepped in to intervene.

 “D-don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure he puts it on when we get there.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was still fairly early in the morning when the five of them approached their destination. It was overcast and the fog still hung rather low, so it was easy for them to keep more or less out of sight as they flew. Not that it was really necessary. Once they were out of West City, the roads were practically deserted. At least people seemed to be heeding the warning to stay away.

 As they arrived on the outskirts of Bakersville, however, the lack of people became unsettling. Even around the perimeter, where there should have been police stationed to keep everyone out, there was no one, not even at the checkpoints blocking the town’s main roads in and out. It was at one of these checkpoints that they found something truly bizarre.

 “Hey, what’s that down there?” Yamcha had called out, pointing down to something that, from that height, simply looked like a large indistinguishable shape of who-knew-what down in front of the gate. Seeing no police around, the group decided it was safe to descend.

 “H-holy shit!” Krillin exclaimed practically the instant they touched down. Trunks was almost glad the former monk had been the one to say it. He certainly shared the sentiment, but was far too shocked to say as much himself. What lie before them was the most macabre display he’d ever seen in his life. Body parts – _human_ body parts – were strung up in front of the main gate by a spider’s web of rope, blood pooling beneath it all. There were several torsos in the center still wearing bloodied police uniforms, twisted arms and legs sticking out from all sides in a grotesque sunburst pattern. There were so many pieces of disembodied flesh that it was impossible to tell just how many people had to die to make the thing.

 “W-w-well, at least now we know what happened to all the cops…” Yamcha stammered out, taking a hesitant step away from the bloody mess. “Y-you don’t think Piccolo did this, do you?”

 At that suggestion, Trunks immediately looked back at Gohan. The boy had a look of mixed horror, confusion, and worry on his face.”

 “L-look, Gohan…” he began uncertainly. “If it really _was_ Piccolo who did this, I’m sure it wasn’t his fault. He’s being controlled right now. He probably has no idea what he’s doing—“

 “Oh, enough of this!” barked out Vegeta, cutting off his son’s feeble assurances. “I’m not about to be intimidated by some little art project! Enough of your games, Namek! I’ll drag you out by your bloody antennae if I have to!”

 “Father, no! _Wait!_ ” Trunks shouted, but it was too late. Vegeta had already barreled through the quarantine gates and had disappeared into the mist that still obscured most of the town. He cursed under his breath, his grip tightening on the straps of the mask his impulsive father had refused to wear. He quickly fitted his own mask over his mouth and nose before turning towards the others.

 “Split up and look for him! If he manages to get himself infected before we can find him, it’ll be impossible to fight against this thing!”

 The others, though clearly nervous, followed his lead, donning their own masks before dashing through the broken gate. Gohan and Yamcha ran off into the mist, though Krillin stayed near Trunks for the time being, if only because both of them seemed too stunned by their surroundings to move very far. The town was nothing like he’d left it. Every building he could see through the fog was covered in huge tendrils of black mold that looked like tree roots covered in tar. They crept up everything, even forming webs of the stuff between houses that were close together.

 Trunks cautiously approached a wall on which a huge mass of the stuff had clung. Stuck in it were about a half a dozen large ovaloid shapes that almost looked like huge black eggs. Krillin gave an uneasy shudder.

 “Aww man, this is starting to look like something out of an Aliens movie. Gonna be honest; I’m not a fan of whatever the hell’s happening here. Not one bit.”

 “This isn’t good… None of this was here yesterday. It’s growing faster than I thought it could.” he lamented aloud. Could this sudden development be because that woman had taken Piccolo? Was his power amplifying her own? Whatever the answer might be, it was anything but good news.

 “We’ve got to hurry. You search over that way. I’ll look over here. It’ll be dangerous to stay long, so we’ve got to find them and get the hell out of here as soon as we can!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Trunks soon found himself sprinting through the empty streets of Bakersville, searching frantically for any trace of either his father or Piccolo. The thick fog made it nearly impossible to see very far in any direction. Even so, the strange black shapes of the mold tendrils that snaked their way across the entire town made themselves apparent before anything else, and it was all getting worse the further in he ran. He was now infinitely glad that his mother had given them these masks. With all this mold choking the life out of the buildings, there was no way the air wasn’t filled with the deadly spores. Unfortunately, that only made his mission to track down Vegeta that much more urgent.

 A flash of movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he immediately stopped in his tracks.

 “Father?” he called out, looking off in the direction he’d seen the movement from. There was definitely a figure there, though the oppressive mist made it impossible to see anything but a vague silhouette. He took a step forward, at first thinking to go confront the man that stood just out of sight, but stopped before he could advance very far. Something wasn’t right. That figure… it moved very strangely, almost like it was trying to slither like a snake as it walked. It twitched as its head and torso bobbed and weaved about without an apparent purpose, a burbling, throaty growl rising up from inside it.

 Suddenly, two long, blackened limbs shot out from the mist at him, razor sharp claws aiming to rip the Saiyan teen’s head clean off his neck. Trunks let out a surprised shout, ducking down just in time to avoid the blow. The creature’s claws sailed just overhead, his hair barely grazing past their blade-like tips. Then, the long limbs retracted back into the mist, and the creature lumbered out.

 It resembled a human in shape alone, its entire body made up of the tar-like mold tendrils he’d seen all over the town. Its head had no eyes – in fact it had no recognizable features aside from a large, gaping maw filled with teeth as large and as sharp as the claws that had come at him earlier. Despite apparently not being able to see, it seemed to know exactly where he was. Trunks dodged to one side as it lunged at him once more, and placed a strong kick squarely into the side of its torso.

 The creature let out a screech of pain, staggered to the side away from the blow, but did not fall. A large shoe-print-shaped dent was left in its ribcage, but it seemed more or less unphased by the blow as it turned towards its prey once more. Trunks stepped backwards, arms raised in a defensive stance as he stared at the approaching creature with a truly perplexed look on his face. What the hell was this thing? Could this be one of the missing people, or was this mold able to spawn actual living things to protect it?

 He hadn’t the time to get answers for his questions just yet. The creature was on the attack once more, and Trunks wasn’t in the mood to take chances. He dashed backwards away from the blow, firing off a small bombardment of ki blasts at his opponent. Each one hit its mark, its left arm readily disintegrating, its body falling to the ground as its legs were taken off at the knees.

 Trunks watched for a moment as the creature twitched and flailed on the ground, its one remaining limb lashing out wildly to strike at anything within reach. Then, it looked up at him once more, letting out another wretched screech before digging its claws into the asphalt beneath it and dragging itself closer to him. This took him by surprise, and he fired another blast of ki more out of instinct than anything else. This one happened to hit the creature square in the head, which popped like an overripe melon. Finally, its body went limp.

 Even though he was certain it was finally dead, Trunks kept a healthy distance from its corpse. What the hell was going on here? This mold creature… Was it really possible for that woman to have created something that strong? Sure, she may have been genetically engineered as a bioweapon, but for a human to have created something like this seemed beyond belief. Then again, what was Cell but one twisted human’s creation?

 He didn’t get the chance to dwell on it further, as a loud shout of pain echoed out through the fog. It hadn’t come from a creature like the one he’d just fought. No, this one was quite human. And it was a human he recognized.

 “Krillin?!” Trunks called out before taking flight, rocketing off towards where he’d heard the shout. He was able to find the former monk soon enough, though he seemed to be on the retreat, and… was he injured? He landed next to him, prompting the shorter man to slow down to a stop. He didn’t seem too keen on suddenly coming to a stop like that. Even with Trunks there, he was constantly scanning the entire area, watching for something to jump out of the mist at him. His right arm hung limp at his side, huge gashes in it dripping blood that was rapidly pooling on the ground where he stood.

 “Y-your arm! What happened?!” Trunks asked, a note of concern clear in his voice. Krillin didn’t dare take his eyes off the surrounding mist as he answered.

 “This whole town is crawling with freaky mold monsters! One of them nearly bit my arm clean off! Don’t you think this was something you coulda warned us about?!”

 “I-I didn’t know! They weren’t here yesterday! _None_ of this was here yesterday!”

 Before the two could discuss the situation further, a chorus of gurgling growls rang out from the direction Krillin had come from. Soon, several twitching silhouettes appeared against the fog, and they were heading their way. Trunks’ eyes widened. Just how many of those things were there?

 Before the approaching horde could attack, a bright blue light cut through the fog, distracting the creatures momentarily. Trunks chanced a look up, spotting a distant ball of light as it shot directly upward into the sky. He recognized the energy emanating from it immediately. It was one of Gohan’s ki blasts. He’d either found one of the two men they were looking for, or he was in serious trouble. Either way, it wasn’t worth sticking around there any longer.

 “Let’s go!” Trunks called out, grabbing Krillin by his uninjured arm and taking off into the sky once more. He headed straight for the area Gohan had signaled from, trying his best to ignore the unhappy growling of the horde they’d left behind. He soon spotted Gohan down below in the dissipating fog, sighing in relief as he spotted two familiar figures with him. Good, he’d found Vegeta. Yamcha was with him, too. At least now they could regroup and come up with a plan moving forward.

 Things looked a tad grimmer once Trunks and Krillin touched own to meet with the others. Gohan was doing his best to help prop Yamcha up, whose left leg had similar injuries to the ones on Krillin’s arm. So he’d been attacked as well? He shifted his attention towards his father, who looked as though he was readying himself for a fight. The corpses of a few of the mold creatures lay scattered around him, and he stood there staring into the mist as though he knew more were on the way.

 Soon enough, a figure did appear in the fog, but it didn’t behave like the mold creatures. It was still, and walked towards them calmly. When it finally passed through the mist and into view, they found a familiar face staring back at them.

 “P-Piccolo..?” Gohan called out, though he seemed understandably uncertain. It was indeed Piccolo, but the way he looked… Almost all of the color had drained from his skin, his complexion turned a dull grayish-green. Dark veins were faintly visible around the edges of his face, and equally dark circles had formed under his eyes. His body was covered in the same sort of black substance that the creatures from earlier were made of, as though he’d worn one of their skins as a kind of armor. His expression was blank and unreadable as ever, and his eyes… there was something off about them, but Trunks couldn’t quite place what.

 “Well, it’s about goddamned time you showed yourself!” Vegeta growled out, never dropping his fighting stance even as he spoke to someone normally considered an ally. “Now then, are you going to come along quietly, or am I going to have to beat you into submission first?”

 Piccolo didn’t seem to hear him. The pale Namekian continued to casually look the group over at his leisure, his body relaxed, his expression utterly blank. Naturally, Vegeta wasn’t terribly pleased at being ignored. His fists balled up a little tighter than before, a growl emanating from behind gritted teeth.

 “Hey! Are you listening to me?!” the Saiyan prince shouted. Piccolo’s expression and posture remained unchanged, though he did finally answer, his voice sounding as dull has his skin looked.

 “Neither. I’ll be staying here.”

 This response, of course, only served to enrage Vegeta further.

 “Why you cocky son of a—!” he shouted as he shot forward, a fist raised up as he aimed to drive it squarely against the Namekian’s jaw. Before he could make contact, however, a hand shot out to catch Vegeta’s fist the instant it was thrust forward. The Saiyan prince couldn’t hide the surprise on his face as he stared up at Piccolo, who merely stared back with the same expressionless look in his eye as before. Vegeta let out another growl, his feet digging into the asphalt below as he put more power behind his fist. Despite this, neither his hand nor his opponent’s budged. The Saiyan prince ground his teeth together in frustration. How was he able to hold him back so effortlessly, and with one hand? There was no way Piccolo should be this strong!

 Finally, the Namekian’s hand moved, but not in the direction the shorter man would have wanted. He pushed forward, bending Vegeta’s wrist back. The Saiyan resisted stubbornly, refusing to back off even as he felt the pressure mounting on his arm. He simply refused to believe he could be beaten by someone like this! Finally, his hubris got the better of him. There was a sickening crack, and Vegeta’s arm distorted unnaturally around the middle of his forearm. He’d just broken his arm.

 Vegeta clenched his jaw, refusing to shout out in pain even as his arm felt like it was being slowly crushed. How was this happening? With Goku gone, he should have been the most powerful person on the planet, aside from perhaps Gohan. Yet here he was, standing beneath a man he’d almost completely written off before, his arm being twisted up as the other stared down at him without an ounce of emotion in his face. That was the true insult. The least this bastard could do was muster up some anger or wrath!

 Suddenly, Piccolo’s free hand shot forward, clamping itself firmly over Vegeta’s face. The shorter man’s uninjured hand immediately moved to grasp at his attacker’s wrist, but it proved just as immovable as the other had been. Then, one of the black tendrils that had been wrapped around the Namekian’s forearm unwound itself, snaking its way down his arm and pushing past his palm to invade Vegeta’s mouth.

 All pretense of remaining outwardly unperturbed was eliminated immediately, and Vegeta’s muffled screams could be heard even back where the others still watched in horror. Finally, it seemed Gohan couldn’t take watching the spectacle any longer. He ran forward, slamming the side of his body into Piccolo’s shoulder. Surprisingly enough, this seemed to be enough to make him release his grip on the injured Saiyan. Vegeta collapsed to the ground, coughing violently and occasionally heaving up a disgusting black liquid.

 Piccolo, however, remained as calm and nonplused as ever. He turned his attention towards Gohan, who now stood a few paces away, crouched into a fighting stance. The expression he held on his face made it quite clear that he wasn’t terribly eager to fight his old mentor, though.

 “Piccolo, you have to stop this! This isn’t like you! Can’t you see? You can’t let yourself be controlled like this! Please, come back with us! Bulma can find a way to cure you and make you better!”

 “Gohan…” Piccolo replied calmly, though his tone didn’t seem to have changed from earlier. “You don’t understand what’s happening here. None of you do.”

 As he spoke, the faint growling of the mold creatures rose up all around them. Dark, twitching silhouettes approached through the fog, dozens of them. As the creatures emerged, they seemed to pass by Piccolo as though he wasn’t there, heading instead for Gohan. They converged around the Saiyan boy, their dagger-like teeth snapping and eager for blood. Trunks dashed forward, preparing to attack as many of those creatures as he could and pull Gohan out of there. Before he could, however, a loud shout rang out through the area.

“ _Stop!_ ”

 And, just like that, the entire horde stopped. The creatures stood, frozen in place like statues, their claws still raised in preparation for their attack. Trunks, highly confused, looked around for where that bellowing order could have come from. Eventually, his attention seemed to settle back on Piccolo. A bit of life had come back to his face, his eyes not quite as expressionless as they’d been a moment ago.

 “Not this one.” He ordered, a clear tone of command in his voice. He made a quick gesture with his hand, and the creatures actually started to back away from around Gohan. As the horde retreated back into the fog, Trunks spotted the much smaller figure of a young woman standing just behind Piccolo, a veil of black lace obscuring her face.

 “You said this boy was the Gohan of this time.” came the woman’s soft voice. “He’s the strongest of the lot of them. I _want_ him.”

 With that, Trunks could see several large mold tendrils snaking their war around the woman’s feet, clearly reaching out to wrap themselves around Gohan. Before either of the half-Saiyan boys could react, however, Piccolo held a peremptory hand out in front of the girl.

 “I said not this one.” he repeated sternly. “Not _yet_ …”

 The tendrils stopped their creeping momentarily, hovering uncertainly where they were, before finally snaking their way back.

 “Yes, Daddy…”

 And with that, the two disappeared into the fog once more, leaving the group to pick up the pieces of their failed rescue mission.


End file.
